


For Reasons Much Older Than Silver

by summerwines



Category: Gravity Falls, ParaNorman (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Blood and Gore, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 21:55:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerwines/pseuds/summerwines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are robbers and killers, lovers and riders, devils void of wings. And, they are not sorry; they never will be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Reasons Much Older Than Silver

**Author's Note:**

> Parapines Crime AU! Title is from Toby Barlow's Sharp Teeth.
> 
> So neko drew me [a thing](http://fantasticmrlc.tumblr.com/post/55727393795/im-sorry-this-in-unbealively-late-ive-been), and an idea popped into my head hours later when I was reading You Are Jeff by Richard Siken. The style is...experimental. I hope I made it work. Currently, I'm also planning a long!fic, which I pray will turn out well. This is kind of like an in-between release before I get to that one. (The premise is secret, ehe.)

1

 

They do not know their names. They know how one always has dirt smeared below his chin, and how the other always has a new wound on his forehead or cheek. They know how the one with greasy brown hair is always trying to impress the girls at the bar, with stories of gnomes and monsters. The one with black hair never tries, just smiles and whistles, and he is much more successful. It is just a game. The two of them hold hands whenever they walk the streets. Something is different, with the way they move, when one is in the presence of the other. They move like wind and like water. Their hands glide on each other’s skin; their feet flow at each other’s pace. Everyone knows how much they love each other. Yet, they do not know their names.

 

 

2

 

A girl arrives, and she changes everything. They see her enter the building with wiped out paint, gray and black. One sees her knock on the door to the apartment, where the boys in love have stayed in for weeks. One sees her in a long brown coat and bright red gloves. One notices the gun secured at her belt, hidden behind her layers of clothing. She laughs like a queen entertained by jesters in a palace, deafening, without caution. In the streets, she whispers to the boy with black hair, with her eyebrows knit and her fingers hardened, directing, pointing to the roof of a building and to the door of a house. The boy with brown hair, cigarette in mouth, says they should move faster, they haven’t got time. They all smile, and they all agree that they shouldn’t delay the fun. The girl changes everything, because she tells them what to do.

 

 

3

 

No one is concerned that there are two coffins the color of coal floating by the riverbank. The police find the body of the mayor and his wife, the ones who stripped them of Christmas bonus and casual Fridays. The mayor’s wrists have been slit. There are stitches on his chest, and forensics are saying his heart has been taken out. His wife, who will always be remembered for her taste in ecstasy and vodka, seems to have died of natural causes. Though, no one can know for sure, because the police cannot be trusted, not in this town, not in any. They cannot be trusted with unbiased accounts and detailed reports. They cannot be trusted to spot a culprit sitting and staring and laughing at a distance, a girl with long brown hair who knows the ins and outs of ravenous slits, poisonous drinks, ceasing hearts.

 

4

 

A new set of eyes. This time, they get names, from the two boys who are always seen whispering in each other’s ears, flushing at each other’s touches. They are in a town where all the houses are made of wood and all the roads are rocky and jagged. The two boys are seen in a tavern, their jaws splotched with ash and their lips coated in each other’s spit. The one whose eyes are blue brushes his fingers at the other’s chin. He licks his mouth and he makes him smile. The boy whose eyes are drooped in hazel carves their names on the table, with a knife, with a grin. He carves a heart in the middle of their names. He kisses his lips and he mouths “forever, forever,” and everyone understands what he means when he says this. His name is Dipper, and the one he will love till darkness comes, till their hearts are cut out, till the blood in their veins is sucked from their skin—His name is Norman.

 

 

5

 

It is a Saturday and a man in his late fifties has been found strangled in his own home. All of his riches, his bags and his jackets filled with slabs of money, have all disappeared. The people of the town surround his house, proliferating gossip, speculating culprits. The boys are not there, among the crowd. They find them sleeping in a car that belongs to neither of them. Norman has Dipper curled in his arms, Dipper’s head in the crook of his neck. At first, they think it’s them; it should be. But, it can’t be. They couldn’t have. “Why not?” a girl asks, coat brown and gloves red. She stands among a crowd of ladies whispering by the dead man’s home. No one can answer her well. “Gee, I guess—“ They’ve weaved the story of the two boys in love. “I really don’t know—“ They’ve made them into gods of sex and eternities and drunken kisses. “Then I guess they didn’t,” the girl says, shrugging, smiling, eliciting doubt.

 

 

6

 

Someone has stolen a bus from the terminal. There were no passengers except Dipper and Norman. People who have seen the bus pass by have noticed the girl with the brown coat handling the steering wheel. They see that she no longer has gloves, and for a fleeting second, they see the gashes on her palms. They are afraid of her, and they cannot fathom why the boys are not afraid of her as well. Dipper smokes, hand limp out an open window. Norman sleeps on Dipper’s shoulder, serene. They see the bite marks on Dipper’s bare arm, and they see the bruise on his neck. Dipper, Norman, and the girl drive away from the town, and they are not chased, because what’s the use, the bus is replaceable, the police do not care, they have done them a favor, that man was nasty and rude.

 

 

7

 

A woman is spared, from the knife of the boy whose eyes were glowing green. She is almost killed atop the grass, in the woods near her town, but the boy is stopped by a pair of hands, a pair of lips, “Come back to me, Norman. Come back.” The woman is helped up from the ground by a girl who tells her to run and to never speak of this to anyone. The woman does as she’s told, but she stops at a spot where she can still hear their voices. “I’m here. They’re not real. They never were. Just look at me, Norman. I’m here.” She hears sobbing, and she hears a girl saying this can’t go on. They have to find a way to keep him intact, to keep him grounded, to keep him safe from the fucking voices in his head.

 

 

8

 

The boys embrace, Dipper and Norman, while they sit, under the stars, on the flat roof of a house. They have right in front of them a pool of blood and the body of a woman who watches them while she breathes her last breaths. She sees the tears that flood Dipper’s cheeks. She sees the blankness of Norman’s face, blue eyes dipped in coal. She thinks about her life – her late husband, her son in college, her co-workers at the hardware store. She thinks about the life that’s been taken away from her, by horrible people who think they can cry and make everything all right, make everything forgiven. She knows better. She knows those hands, and those lips, and those eyes, burning and killing, will someday be ash and dust, hellfire and brimstone.

 

 

9

 

“Norman will never forgive you, sir. He’ll make sure all your fucking blood is drained from that tiny little body of yours. So don’t even think of shooting that gun. Don’t even think.” The words are heard. The man trembles. The gun falls from his hand, a loud clack on the floor. He cries and he screams, “You killed her. You killed my mother.” The boy in front of him stares and says he’s sorry, not for killing his mother, but for what’s about to happen, for the knife about to stab his back. “Well, I’m not sorry at all,” the girl says, and she does it: The knife pierces straight through his heart; the blood is dark and heavy. He dies, and the last thing he sees is the face of the girl who tells him her name is Mabel, and he better remember that in the afterlife; he better remember every detail of her body – her pale face, and her hands soaked in blood.

 

 

10

 

Mr. and Mrs. Pines are killed in a fire that burns their entire home. A day after it happens, old Lettie from next door rushes to meet the twins, newly arrived from a trip around the country. Again, they have that boy with them. The boy is always holding on to Dipper’s hand, fingers firm and voice mellow. Lettie notes his beautiful black hair. She notes how it’s almost as black as the rubble and ash scattered on the ground. She speaks their names, “Mabel?” and then she stops, breathes. “Dipper?” They all look at her and she sees Dipper’s face bathed in tears, Mabel’s face bathed in anger. She gulps. “I am so sorry,” she says. “For your loss.” The boy with black hair tells her to leave, scram, get the hell out of here. She runs, humiliated, and she hears Dipper screaming, for his mother and his father, for revenge. “Norman, bring them back, please, bring them back.” Mabel says they should’ve seen this coming. They should’ve done something. It’s their fault, it’s their fault, and they need to make it right.

 

 

11

 

Three men are killed. Somewhere in Wisconsin, in a dingy alleyway, a man is seen hanging from a fire escape, neck tied with rope, eyes agape and full of fear. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, inside a nightclub, dancers scream as they see a man hanging from the ceiling lights, roped neck, fully clothed. Somewhere in the Deep South, in Texas, a man hangs, center stage, blood dripping from his mouth, in city hall, there for everyone to see. In Gravity Falls, inside yet another bar, bartender Wendy Corduroy decides to ask Mabel, Dipper, and Norman why they were smiling as they watched the news. Dipper purses his lips, and then he shrugs, closes his eyes and drops his head on Norman’s shoulder, pleased. Mabel answers, “We love a good crime story, Wendy dear.” Wendy watches Dipper and Norman walk away to a booth, and she watches Norman grab Dipper’s cheeks and kiss him, kiss him, tongue him, no inhibitions, nothing. Mabel laughs and says they’re always like that, whenever they win. Wendy says, “Come again?” and Mabel says, “See ‘ya later,” before she walks, with grace and with care, out of the door. Wendy feels a weight in the pit of her stomach. She feels it, and it only gets worse as she sees Dipper getting eaten up, bitten on the neck, smiling in victory.

 

 

12

 

The rumors people weave have never been in line with the actual truth. They say they’ve already been caught and handed over to a secret authority. They say they’re already murdered and dead – the bodies of the boys tangled, covered in dirt; the body of the girl lit and burned, reduced to dust. It is rumored that Dipper Pines and Norman Babcock are living together, married, somewhere in the North, somewhere in Canada, where they speak French and eat the most delicious flapjacks. They say that Dipper and Norman are happy. They are heard moaning each other’s names day and night, and they are seen in public with eyes intact, with noses in each other’s scalps, and with teeth in each other’s necks. Mabel Pines visits, but it is rumored that she lives on a boat, sailing through rivers and seas, void of a moral compass, in the company of whosever desires to ride. Many do not believe any of this is true. They are still running, with their knives and their guns and their wily hands. Mabel is always ahead, looking, searching, devising. Dipper and Norman are always behind, waiting, loving, preparing. People get angry and they take things away, take things they love, but Norman, with his eyes that glow and his mind that sees, is always watching. He knows who they are, and he won’t ever forgive them. Dipper loves him oh so much. Mabel loves him too, but in a very different way.

 

 

13

 

Trouble is the crown on her head, flowers and thorns, bloody and delicious. Desire is the color of their eyes, spit and nails, inky and debauched. They are two singulars: Pines, and Pines-Babcock. They are running, and their footsteps are loud on the stone and the soil. Can you hear them? Can you see them at the corner of your eye? Dipper and Norman will skin you and open your chest. They will kiss over your body and cry over your blood. Mabel will clean you up, and caress your cheek before you sink to hell. She will take your ring and wear it on her finger. They are watching you, watching you, because they can, because they want to, because the goodness in their hearts have died, twice, thrice, infinity times. So find them, hear them, and watch them run.

 

 

**fin.**


End file.
